Meeting to thank partnerships in the Warao data collection in Pará

The IBGE State Superintendence in Pará carried out a meeting last January 17 in its headquarters to thank the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Brazilian Caritas, partners of the State Technical Coordination of the 2022 Census from the planning up to the conclusion of the data collection of the Warao population in that state. The meeting was conducted by José Maria Costa Júnior, a SES Pará census analyst and social scientist in charge of planning and of articulating all the actions that allowed the data collection of Traditional Communities and Peoples (PCTs) in the territory of Pará.

The meeting counted with the presence of Tamajara da Silva, Senior Field Assistant at UNHCR, and of Vivian Cabeça, Assistant of Information Management at UNHCR. Joana Lima, Technical Advisor of Protection, and Rosane Gomes, Local Coordinator of Orinoco III-PA project, represented the Brazilian Caritas.

In addition to José Maria Júnior, Luiz Cláudio Martins, State Technical Coordinator of the Census, Norma Bentes, Coordinator of Dissemination, Ângela Gemaque, Supervisor of the Continuous PNAD, as well as Waldir Hipólito and Regivaldo Aguiar from the Supervision of Territorial Base (SBT/SES PA) represented SES Pará.

Costa Júnior began his speech reminding the IBGE actions to improve the data collection of indigenous people during the 2022 Census. “New technologies to improve the territorial base; technical cooperation agreements with offices that work with those populations and count with a comprehensive information base; encouragement of the participation of the indigenous people themselves in the census planning; establishment of a specific day in the trainings of the entire chain to talk about PCTs only: these are some actions that guaranteed the quality of the data collection as never before,” highlighted Costa Júnior.

According to the analyst´s speech, the IBGE enumerated Warao residents in six municipalities, most of them in Belém and Ananindeua, in the metropolitan area of Belém. Supported by the UNHCR, the IBGE enumerated Warao families in the neighborhoods of Campina, Tapanã and Distrito do Outeiro in Belém. In Ananindeua, the questionnaires were filled in the neighborhoods of Curuçambá, Levilândia and Industrial District.

In addition to the residents in the metropolitan area, the IBGE collected Warao data in Santarém (where a shelter was detected and no private households), Parauapebas (also a shelter), Marabá (several private households) and, lastly, in Salinópolis, a municipality included in the list of Warao data collection in the end of the census operation, when the team in that area discovered a private property recently acquired by a Warao family, with 15 residents.

Costa Júnior specially thanked the UNHCR representatives for guaranteeing the participation of Warao interpreters in the Census data collection. The group was formed by refugees who live in Belém and Ananindeua, and who participated in a training provided by the University of Brasília and Federal University of Paraíba in April 2022. “Besides the awareness that you and the Caritas team created in those populations, the introduction of interpreters to our team was key, as the language barrier was always one of the biggest challenges,” explained the analyst. “We managed to collect the data due to the interpreters who, long before the Census, studied our questionnaires and adapted each question to the social, cultural and religious reality of their people, teaching our team on how to behave, how to question, etc.,” detailed him.

Tamajara da Silva congratulated the IBGE for the “care and sensitivity” in the Warao data collection and highlighted the importance of the enumeration for the acquisition of rights. “We expect that the data collected by the IBGE might subsidize, in the future, public policies and foster the integration of Warao refugees in the Brazilian context. We reiterate the importance of that initiative and the commitment, aiming at future partnerships with the IBGE.” Vivian Cabeça expressed her expectations on the results of the Census. “It is a very important work. Only by seeing the description of how everything was done makes us very enthusiastic with the potential work. This Census might bring major contributions to the profile of the Warao people in Brazil, being a revolution in the life of those populations,” forecast the UNHCR assistant.

For Joana Lima, of the Brazilian Caritas, the partnership with the IBGE was an “excellent experience.” Lima reminded that Caritas is among those institutions that use IBGE official data to implement their actions and projects. “The IBGE is an international reference and to know that we will have IBGE figures about the Warao people, invisible for a long time, and that, through these data, they will recognize themselves and will be recognized as part of those living in Brazil, is a reason of great satisfaction for the Brazilian Caritas. Even more knowing how much the IBGE teams get prepared in every aspect,” said Lima. “Respect is a universal language and by respecting the cultural diversity of those populations you managed to accomplish such a great job. We have only to thank you!,” concluded the Caritas representative.

In their speeches, the state coordinator of the 2022 Census, both from the technical area and from dissemination, stated that the Population Census is not an accomplishment of the IBGE alone, but rather of the entire society, pointing out the relevance of the partners. “The IBGE drives the process, but the Brazilian Census is so huge that it would be impossible to handle it alone. In this respect, we are very grateful to our partners. Especially concerning the data collection of indigenous people and quilombolas, very peculiar populations difficult to access even geographically speaking,” commented Luiz Martins.

For Norma Bentes, to improve the data collection among indigenous people was an IBGE “debt” since the 2010 Census, “especially for us who live in the Amazon.” Nevertheless, reminded Bentes, “we knew that the challenges were huge and that, by ourselves, we would never advance in face of the distances and communication difficulties. In the case of the Warao people, having the UNHCR and Caritas with us was a major differential and the commitment of those involved was key to the excellent data collection,” stated Bentes.

Thanks to the awareness work carried out by the IBGE partners, SES Pará completed the Warao data collection with a zero refusal rate.